Israel admits Ethiopian women were given birth control shots

Health Minister director general instructs all gynecologists in Israel’s four health maintenance organizations not to inject women with long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera if they do not understand ramifications of treatment.

A government official has for the first time acknowledged the practice of injecting women of Ethiopian origin with the long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera.

Health Ministry Director General Prof. Ron Gamzu has instructed the four health maintenance organizations to stop the practice as a matter of course.

The ministry and other state agencies had previously denied knowledge or responsibility for the practice, which was first reported five years ago.

Gamzu’s letter came in response to a letter from Sharona Eliahu-Chai of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, representing several women’s rights and Ethiopian immigrants’ groups. The letter demanded the injections cease immediately and that an investigation be launched into the practice.

Offering birth control shots to Jews? Not excluding them from being able to get contraception?

Of course I don’t have a problem with it. Do you?

This isn’t forced sterilization. I simply do not believe there is some conspiracy to force only Ethiopian women to have this treatment. AND the article does not say there is. It just eludes to some evil.

Gamzu’s letter instructed “all gynecologists in the HMOs not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provera for women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.” Gamzu also instructed physicians to avail themselves of translators if need be.

That is certainly good advice, but it DOES NOT mean that anything different was happening in the past.

About six weeks ago, on an Educational Television program journalist Gal Gabbay revealed the results of interviews with 35 Ethiopian immigrants. The women’s testimony could help explain the almost 50-percent decline over the past 10 years in the birth rate of Israel’s Ethiopian community. According to the program, while the women were still in transit camps in Ethiopia they were sometimes intimidated or threatened into taking the injection. “They told us they are inoculations,” said one of the women interviewed. “They told us people who frequently give birth suffer. We took it every three months. We said we didn’t want to.”

Israel has admitted for the first time that it has been giving Ethiopian Jewish immigrants birth-control injections, often without their knowledge or consent.

…

Haaretz published an extract from a letter sent by the Ministry of Health to units administering the drug. Doctors were told “not to renew prescriptions for Depo Provera for women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment”.

Sharona Eliahu Chai, a lawyer for the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), said: “Findings from investigations into the use of Depo Provera are extremely worrisome, raising concerns of harmful health policies with racist implications in violation of medical ethics. The Ministry of Health’s director-general was right to act quickly and put forth new guidelines.”

Sorry but this meets the textbook definition of a eugenics policy. The fact that the women weren’t permanently sterilized only differs from historical abuses by a matter of degree. The goal was the same - to by hook or by crook reduce the reproductive rate of undesirable members of society.

I know that Haaretz reported he’s a journalist with Educational Television, who interviewed Ethiopian immigrants.

Are you trying to imply he’s lying about this?

Or a very poor journalist, with very little history and perhaps an agenda.

A quick search for “Gal Gabbay” finds what exactly? Well, nothing but this story.

And this story is ONLY about the interviews with 35 women.

Now imagine the other side. You have to believe that the government, after allowing these people safety from seriously oppressive lives, and spending millions to help them immigrate, have conspired to temporarily (3 months at a time, for 8 years) stop them from having babies.

It is ridiculous on its face.

Jewish/Israeli doctors take the same Hippocratic oath that all doctors do.

It is much more believable that these women ASKED for help with control over their reproductive cycles, and preferred a method that could be hidden from their husbands and community.

Who the hell is Gal Gabbay? I do a search and the first thing that comes up is his Facebook profile.

Is this the first time you have seen “a lie go around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on”?

The latest outcry over Educational TV came this week, as veteran reporter Gal Gabay, in a talk show, criticized Israelis who hike and explore historic areas of Judea and Samaria. Gabay, speaking to right-wing activist Amotz Eyal, said that Israelis who took such hikes were “provocateurs” seeking to cause trouble, and that they were coming to hike in “Palestine.” And, despite her claims later, in an apology she issued, Gabay repeated the term several times.

Talkbacks against Gabay on news websites have been vociferous in their disapproval of Gabay’s comments. Hundreds of people have already signed a petition demanding that she be fired, despite her apology, which, the petition states, “appears to be more of an admission of guilt than an apology.” In her apology, Gabay said that she “obviously” mean to say “territories under the control of the Palestinian Authority,” and expressed her disappointment at “how a mistake was turned into a political position.”

This is not the first time Gabay or her program, “Making Order” (O’sim Seder), has raised the ire of Israelis, or of Media Watch. “This program has a long history of prejudice against the right, with Gabay freely expressing her political opinions on a program that is supposed to be informative, not opinionated,” Ben-Gigi says. A recent Media Watch study showed that Gabay interviwed on average four Labor Mks for every two Likud Mks, for example, while clearly leftist interviewees outnumbered right-wing guests by 4 to 1.

Regarding the Israeli right wing, there’s also this from Haaretz on Nov.25, 2011 (emphasis mine):

The campaign continued with the move to shut Channel 10. Here too, the relevant minister should be someone else, in this case, Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon. But Netanyahu ignores him, and Kahlon has uttered hardly a word on this matter. Everything has been worked out between Netanyahu and Knesset coalition chair Zeev Elkin. Unlike Kahlon, Elkin opens his mouth.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Sa’ar sent Netanyahu an ultimatum: Alter your course, or I’m no longer education minister. Netanyahu can’t afford to lose popular Likud cabinet ministers. The battle between them is centered on status, respect and ego - and these are qualities that neither lack.

The real question is why Netanyahu is so fixated on Educational Television that he is letting it cause disputes with a political ally. The answer lies in the show broadcast during the 5:30 P.M. daily slot, “Making Order” (“Osim Seder” ), featuring journalists Ben Caspit and Gal Gabai.

The program, particularly the two weekly episodes hosted by Caspit, the well-known Maariv columnist who finds cause almost every week to lash out against Israel’s first couple, is anathema to Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu. They want to pull the plug on it. Thus, the issue isn’t really economics, despite claims by Netanyahu’s aides. The problem is Ben Caspit. […]

Gal Gabai began her journalistic local newspaper Kol Hanegev, exposing municipal corruption, followed by an investigation. Then made ​​documentaries, one of which led to her admission to Army Radio. Then came the new company of Channel 2.

News 2 she served as a police reporter and anchor for Newsflash. One morning flash approach, called Gabay, a social agenda close to her heart, GG Studios to support workers who were paid a few months.

In our opinion provoked a storm of Gabbai, and although its series of articles trafficking followed the Knesset debated the issue, Gabbay longer the system. […]

you made an statement about the Hippocratic oath and how that means that no doctor would do anything bad - the fact that doctors in America, taking the Hippocratic oath continued to permanently sterilize minorities cuts to the fact that the Hippocratic oath does not stop Israeli doctors from temporarily sterilizing minorities.

Does not account
Way from Beersheba to channel 2, channel selection switch Knesset injured hand from a serious injury as a child, social worldview - Gal Gabai not play by the rules. While the new company future uncertain, because she identified transmission with employees who received wages, raises Channel 8 series on the crisis of confidence facing the medical system. Talk with exceptional journalist […]

After reading the full interview, and despite the poor translation, it sounds to me like she has pretty impressive skills as an investigative journalist.

I posted those links to show you that doctors and governments have indeed done these kind of vile things in the past. What makes you think that it couldn’t be happening now?

AND again, your links were NOT about “the sort of thing” in the story.

It makes no sense to me that there could be a coordinated effort between the medical staff at the clinics in Ethiopia, which are run by the JDC and all the doctors in Israeli hospitals and clinics.

When these women came to live in Israel, they would get access to male and female gynecologists. They were not in an institution. They were free to seek treatment from, what is an extensive health care system.

This was thousands of women, settled in Israel over decades. Many of the women who came in the past 8 years were helped by other Ethiopian women who have been in the country for many more years.

They have a community. Would talk among themselves. The idea that for 8 years some would be going to the doctor for an injection every 90 days and NOT know what it was for, or even ask seems very remote.

Again, it is not that they didn’t have access to a modern progressive and advanced health care system. In order to keep getting Depo-Provera, they have to see someone every 90 days. AND each time they get Depo-Provera, they get a pregnancy test first.

What do they have to do to NOT get a pregnancy test and an injection (every 90 days)? Just not show up.

OR IS IT BELIEVABLE that their culture is against contraception and their husbands would be against it.

AND they might ask for and get a contraception method that they could control without pills (that would be seen and found).

Actually there are studies that confirm that when women are moved up and out of extreme poverty, the birthrates drop.

No, actually it is an accusation only. And 90 days is hardly long term.

And all your links WERE about permanent sterilization.

Because the birth control shot is long lasting, it can take a long time to get pregnant after getting your last shot — anywhere from 6–10 months. So, Depo-Provera is not a good birth control method for you if you’re thinking of getting pregnant soon.

The Ethiopian Beta Israel were never Jews (lost tribe or otherwise*) and were used in their evacuations to Israel for propaganda purposes and when no longer needed or in the lime light they culture and traditions are denigrated and cast aside and are now suffered through eugenic human rights violations to keep their numbers down.

Buck it is possible that this story is false. It is also fully possible that it’s true. This is not a rare occurrence. It happens to the Roma all over Europe, it happened to all sorts of people in Sweden. It doesn’t take an evil regime to do something like this.

The Ethiopian Beta Israel were never Jews (lost tribe or otherwise*) and were used in their evacuations to Israel for propaganda purposes and when no longer needed or in the lime light they culture and traditions are denigrated and cast aside and are now suffered through eugenic human rights violations to keep their numbers down.

Buck it is possible that this story is false. It is also fully possible that it’s true. This is not a rare occurrence. It happens to the Roma all over Europe, it happened to all sorts of people in Sweden. It doesn’t take an evil regime to do something like this.

The recent racist reaction to Ethiopian immigrants in Israel has been horrifying.

It isn’t racist, but it is still wrong.

The ONLY problem with the Ethiopians is that their Jewishness is in question due to practices/isolation - NOT COLOR. I still don’t quite agree with that view, either (certainly not at this point), & this is still HEINOUS.

“The related Falash Mura are the descendants of Beta Israel who converted to Christianity. Some are returning to the practices of Judaism, living in communities and returning to Judaism.”

IOW, they WERE Jews (& the ones in the full maternal line STILL ARE), & are returning to Jewish practice.

There were plenty of rabbis, however, who were worried - not in the least unnaturally - that the maternal line was not unbroken, & that their practices were not genuine Judaism. Even the most hardline of rabbis were willing to waive their reservations if they underwent the same mikveh that any Jew who commits apostasy undergoes. But some of them refused - hence the worry.

Which is not to say that it should ever have been solved this way - this is horrendous. Despicable. But I can see that the situation isn’t bad enough for someone who openly hates Israeli Jews, so you had to lie about it.

“The related Falash Mura are the descendants of Beta Israel who converted to Christianity. Some are returning to the practices of Judaism, living in communities and returning to Judaism.”

IOW, they WERE Jews (& the ones in the full maternal line STILL ARE), & are returning to Jewish practice.

There were plenty of rabbis, however, who were worried - not in the least unnaturally - that the maternal line was not unbroken, & that their practices were not genuine Judaism. Even the most hardline of rabbis were willing to waive their reservations if they underwent the same mikveh that any Jew who commits apostasy undergoes. But some of them refused - hence the worry.

Which is not to say that it should ever have been solved this way - this is horrendous. Despicable. But I can see that the situation isn’t bad enough for someone who openly hates Israeli Jews, so you had to lie about it.

It’s wikipedia. I linked studies mentioned on Wikipedia. There are no lost tribes. It’s a myth. There were no 12 tribes of Israel (it’s a mythological Zodiac story).

The modern day Ethiopian “Jews” did not have Jewish ancestors. They were Christians that became more “book” and Old Testament oriented or maybe self converted to escape the Muslim vs Christian clashes in the Middle Ages.

Paul B. Henze supported the latter view in his 2000 work Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia:

These groups came into conflict with the military colonies and Christian missions which were the main instruments of the extension southward of the Ethiopian state. They may have been joined by dissident or rebelling northern Christians who felt their interpretations of ritual, sacred texts and traditions of art represented a more ancient Israelite connection than Orthodox Monophysite Christianity itself. The Beta Israel can thus be understood as a manifestation of the kind of rebellious archaism that has often come to the surface in Christianity—e.g. Russian Old Believers and German Old Lutherans. Assertion of Jewish derivation, they felt, provided them with a stronger claim to legitimacy than their Christian enemies. Paul B. Henze, Layers of Time, Palgrave, 2000. p. 55.